Truly bad ideas from legal academia, part 2038 of a series: GWU lawprof Jonathan Turley wants to get rid of the common-law rule that you can’t sue someone for injuring the reputation of a dead person. (“Give the Dead Their Due”, Washington Post, Sept. 17). At Volokh Conspiracy, commenter elChato writes,
I for one look forward to the descendants of the original Hatfields and McCoys settling in court who was responsible for starting and perpetuating their long-ago feud. The OK Corral battle can live again. Any descendants of Boss Tweed should be able to sue bookwriters who claim he stole $200 million (where’s the proof?), Huey Long’s descendants should be able to sue anyone who said he engaged in bribery and corruption (he was never convicted- where’s the proof?), and on and on and on.
Yes indeed, a great use for the time and energies of the court system which is otherwise sitting idle because there simply are not enough disputes among the living to keep judges busy.
2 Comments
I have always supposed that the rationale behind this rule is that a dead person cannot suffer harm. But what if the descendants of the deceased find that the slander of their deceased parent has resulted in harm to them?
For instance, the son of one who, post-mortem, has been accused of being a member of the Mafia does not get a job as a lawyer in a district attorney’s office due to a “whispering campaign.”
wavemaker: Isn’t that example slander against the son?
A more interesting example might be the bestselling author who dies and then is accussed (without merit) of being a pedophile. In the ensuing public disgust, his estate is unable to sell any more of his books. Should or shouldn’t the estate have the right to sue the slanderer? (putting aside the question, for now, of the ridiculous copyright term afforded the author and his estate)